I Snack on This Slow Cooker “grazing Soup” All Day in the Winter.
There are days when preparing three meals a day and finding snacks in between seems too difficult. When I need to lighten the meal prep workload, I try to reduce the number of “new” meals I prepare in a day. For my family it would be slow cooker soup.
What to Expect from Grazing Soup
The good thing about soup (or stew) is that it’s filling, simple, and can be made into a large portion to snack on throughout the day. You can do this in a large pot or Dutch oven on the stove, but I prefer to use a slow cooker because it no longer requires any hands and once it’s ready, the stove will automatically switch to “keep warm” for as many hours as you need. I can do it. want. This is certainly safer than keeping the fire on the stove for six hours.
The key to making soup is choosing ingredients that won’t spoil throughout the day. You can use my recipe below, but if you’re creating your own version of pasture soup, consider what ingredients you use. Carrots, celery, many cruciferous vegetables (like cauliflower and kale), beans and bitter greens are good candidates that tolerate liquid well. Potatoes will also work, but some types of potatoes keep better than others. Choose waxy potatoes (red potatoes are a good choice) because they have less starch and hold their shape in liquid.
How to keep it interesting
If eating the same soup all day seems tiresome, you can still reap the benefits of not making more than one meal while adding a little variety. You can do this with ready-made jigs or with (what I’ve decided to call) soup evolution.
To the ready-made accessories, you can add a spoonful of leftover pasta or rice that you didn’t finish earlier in the week. If you store hard-boiled eggs in the refrigerator, cut one into a bowl. I often keep frozen turkey meatballs from Trader Joe’s in the freezer. They’re fully cooked, so maybe half an hour before my next lunch, I’ll toss a few into the soup to warm it up.
Soup evolution is about adding a new bulk ingredient to your grazing soup when it starts to run low. In the middle of the day, when the soup has reduced in volume, I might add a can of chickpeas—aquafaba and all. Maybe before dinner you add a bag of frozen dumplings or half a cup of raw pasta to the stew and it will absorb the rest of the broth and create a thicker dish. The soup essentially changes from one main component to another, while retaining some of its former state.
Lately I’ve been loving this red lentil soup with chickpeas. Enjoy pasture soup early and often throughout the day.
Recipe for red lentil soup in a slow cooker
Ingredients:
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½ onion, chopped
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2 medium sized waxy potatoes, diced
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¾ cup chopped carrots
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¾ cup dry red lentils
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2 cups lacinato cabbage, stemmed and coarsely chopped
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4 cups chicken broth
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½ teaspoon salt
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¼ teaspoon MSG
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¼ teaspoon garlic powder
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⅛ teaspoon cayenne pepper powder
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2 teaspoons lemon juice
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1 can organic chickpeas (optional), undrained
1. In true Lazy Crock Pot style, pour all ingredients except lemon juice and a can of chickpeas into the cooker.
2. Cook the soup for 2 hours over high heat, stirring occasionally. Set the stove to warm for the rest of the day. Just before eating the first bowl, add lemon juice.
3. If you notice you’re running low on soup and don’t want the party to end, add liquid to the jar of chickpeas.